Pubdate: Mon, 31 Jul 2000
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2000 David Syme & Co Ltd
Contact:  250 Spencer Street, Melbourne, 3000, Australia
Website: http://www.theage.com.au/
Author: Ewin Hannan, State Political Editor

LIBERALS GET THE RIGHT TO AN OPINION - AND IT HURTS

Nine months after Jeff Kennett's inglorious exit from politics, a funny 
thing has happened to the state Liberal Party - it has consultation fatigue.

Many Liberal backbenchers, unused to having their opinions taken into 
account and having time to consult and consider, are fed up with the 
prolonged public debate on drugs policy.

Rather than be pleased at Labor's decision last week to give them an extra 
two months to ponder the merits of supervised injecting rooms, a number of 
Liberals want to make a decision. Now.

"Most of them were brought up under Kennett," one senior Liberal says. 
"They are not used to it. They want it to come to an end." Another MP says: 
"The whole thing's definitely overcooked. A lot of us are just sick of it."

Underpinning this apparent lethargy is the broadly held conviction that the 
opposition party room will kill off the injecting room plan, regardless of 
when the vote is held.

Indeed, some senior Liberals have already turned their minds to the spin 
they will put on their decision. "It won't be an outright rejection," one 
key MP says. "There will be plenty of bells and whistles. We don't want you 
guys (the media) to portray us as a bunch of troglodytes."

For injecting rooms to win in-principle support from the Liberals, at least 
30 members of the 59-strong party room have to back it. Party sources 
estimate a core group of 10 to 12 MPs are willing to support the plan, with 
20 MPs definitely against. Sources said the remaining MPs had serious 
reservations.

Ring around these MPs or listen to the public utterances of their leader, 
Denis Napthine, and it's difficult not to form the impression the 
opposition will vote it down.

Ask them what's wrong with the plan and they are quick to offer their 
objections. They don't like it. It sends out the wrong message. The general 
community doesn't support it. It's half-baked. There is insufficient 
detail. The overseas experience is inconclusive.

But ask them the potential benefits of injecting rooms, and you'll often 
get an uncomfortable pause down the phone line. Hello! Are you there?

During one lengthy conservation with The Age at the beginning of this 
debate, Napthine chose to chuckle when asked if there were any merits in 
injecting rooms.

In a more recent discussion, Napthine was slightly more effusive, 
acknowledging that some of the arguments for injecting rooms were "valid 
points, worthy of discussion". They include the claim that the facilities 
might lead to a reduction in overdoses, and that they might be safer places 
for users to inject.

Yet it's hard not to get the impression that Napthine will eventually 
decide to vote the proposal down. One factor driving his thinking is his 
political standing.

Napthine is languishing in the opinion polls. There is no guarantee he will 
lead the opposition to the next election, (his main safety valve being that 
there is no serious alternative - at this stage - on his front bench).

Senior Liberals predict Napthine will not be game to risk alienating large 
sections of the community and, more importantly for him, a significant 
chunk of his party room by supporting the facilities.

But Napthine continues to insist he has an open mind on the matter, despite 
giving countless interviews and speeches bagging the government's approach. 
He also won't allow a conscience vote, indicating that party discipline 
rates above personal conviction.

He has warned that the facilities could turn suburbs into drug capitals; 
that it isn't right to establish a legal haven for users to shoot up 
illegal drugs; that the government's approach is over-simplistic.

Last week he told a Rotary Club lunch that injecting rooms should be 
considered only after other issues had been tackled, including policing, 
sentencing, drug imports, treatment and rehabilitation. Given that Napthine 
doesn't believe Labor has adequately dealt with these issues, it does not 
require a great leap of logic to conclude that he is unlikely to support 
the facilities.

But after the lunch he continued to insist he had an open mind, keener to 
slap down his troublesome health spokesman, Robert Doyle, than publicly to 
reveal what he really thinks.

As each day passes, the Liberals' supposed agonising on this issue is 
looking more like a charade.

Not that the government's approach is without blemish. Its performance in 
recent weeks has been reactive rather than pro-active, preferring to belt 
the opposition around the ears rather than engage in the policy hard sell.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager